I'm pleased to say that I understand "Death of a Salesman" better than I understood "The American Dream." That might have something to do with the fact that I studied it (kinda) in Am Lit sophomore year, though. I'm still undecided on what I think is wrong with Willy, since we've been told that he isn't supposed to be mentally ill. Clearly, something is wrong. It's not exactly normal to have flashbacks so elaborate you actually relive them. But if Arthur Miller says Willy doesn't have an illness, I guess I'll just have to believe him. Watching the film really helped me understand the characters, though. Seeing Biff's need to please Willy and Willy's need to be successful, instead of just reading about them, helped me relate to them. Sometimes, I just want my parents to notice me too, Biff. I'm actually semi-excited to discuss this play in class and see what other people think is "wrong" with Willy.
One huge thing this class as a whole, but especially these last few weeks, has taught me is not to procrastinate. Which is potentially the most challenging aspect of this class for me. I can analyze literature. I can write essays. I can memorize stuff. But doing any of that in a decent amount of time? Yeah, no. I suck at that. The main place I ran into this issue was with the chapter 4 essay. The day before it was due, all I had written was the intro paragraph. So I spent my Sunday night writing two more pages, then forgetting a works cited page. It was great. I guess it's better that I'm learning this now, and not my first semester of college. So thanks, AP Lit (and Ms. Holmes), I'm sure I'll eventually learn my lesson.
And of course, there's the terms test. 65%, anyone? But hey, that's a 20% increase on my first score! The main thing I learned from the terms test (other than however many definitions are on there) is that I'm going to need to spend some time looking at how questions are worded to give me a hint at the correct definition. For those of you who don't know which question I'm referring to, it's the Coach Carr one. Who knew the omission of one word could lead to losing 2 points? If that's how I'm going to get a 5 on the AP test, I really need to get working.
Hi Bri,
ReplyDeleteI always love reading your blog posts. Your writing has great voice in it and I feel like you not only connected with the course material, but also with the readers of your blog. I agreed with you on many things, like the fact that you thought Willy had a mental illness. Maybe you could analyze why you thought this way. For example, you could compare Willy to John Nash from the movie, "A Beautiful Mind" that we watched last year in Mr. Saros's class. I think Nash and Willy are similiar in that they both see hallucinations of people like Willy's brother and Nash's imaginary "best friend". The movie had said that Nash had schizophrenia, so I inferred that Willy did too.
I liked how you chose topics that everyone in our class could relate to. I know that I procrastinate as well, so it is nice to see that I am not the only one who is trying to work on that. With regard to the terms test, we are totally in the same boat here. I am pretty sure I got a 65% on it the second time...but hey I improved from the 50% the first time! I agree that the wording of the questions were a bit tricky. Hopefully by the AP exam, we will both be pros at analyzing the wording! Overall, great job on this blog post! Keep up the good work.
This response was really good! I could clearly hear your voice in this entry which was excellent because this is supposed to be a personal reaction to the course material. Not procrastinating is something I still need help with as well, but I'm getting better because AP Lit is forcing me to! I also got owned by the terms test (we got the same score, haha) so I hope I can improve by the AP exam. Overall, I thought this was an excellent post and I can't see any major aspect you can improve on.
ReplyDeleteThis response is great! This is an excellent personal reflection because your personality is clearly visible when reading it. I have had the same issues with procrastination in this class. Just like you, I waited till this last minute to write the chapter four essay. I disagree that "something is wrong" with WIlly mentally. If Willy did have a mental illness i feel like it would take away from the meaning of the book because you could use the illness and an excuse for some of his actions. I think its interesting that you brought it up that Willy has a mental illness because in todays society we know a lot more about mental illness than back when the book was written. This was a great post and keep on using your strong voice in these course material blogs.
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